The Fitzwilliam Museum

Download or read book The Fitzwilliam Museum written by Lucilla Burn and published by Philip Wilson Publishers. This book was released on 2016-01-14 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Fitzwilliam Museum is not just the principal museum of the University of Cambridge but also one of the leading UK museums outside London. This book traces its story from the Museum’s origins in the 1816 bequest of Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion, up to the present day. At the same time it sets the Fitzwilliam’s individual story against the larger context of the growth and development of museums and galleries in the UK and further afield.The text and illustrations draw primarily on the rich and hitherto largely unpublished archives of the Fitzwilliam Museum, including the Syndicate Minutes,the reports of University debates published in the Cambridge University Reporter from 1870 on wards, compilations of earlier nineteenth-century documents,architectural plans and drawings, newspaper reports, letters, diaries, exhibition catalogues, photographs and other miscellaneous documents. With this material a substantial proportion of the narrative can be told through contemporary voices, not least those of the Museum’s thirteen Directors to date, each one a strong and influential character.